Dr. Sanjay Gupta–the neurosurgeon who hosts CNN’s medical program House Calls and appears on CBS as contributor–has been offered the job of Surgeon General by President-elect Barack Obama, sources told the Washington Post. 

Along with heading the 6,000-member Commissioned Corps of the United States Public Health Service, a cadre of health professionals who are on call 24 hours a day and can be dispatched in time of public health crisis,

The Surgeon General serves as America’s chief health educator by providing Americans the best scientific information available on how to improve their health and reduce the risk of illness and injury. 

Basically the Surgeon General says to America:

Don’t smoke, eat less, exercise more, use condoms

though the latter got C. Everett Koop in hot water with conservatives. So Gupta would be doing what he already does on the teevee–talking to America about staying healthy.

The Washington Post reports:

The offer followed a two-hour Chicago meeting in November with Obama, who said that Gupta could be the highest-profile surgeon general in history and would have an expanded role in providing health policy advice, the sources said.

But Gupta’s not just another telegenic face. He’s an actual, real life brain surgeon! While embedded with a Navy unit called Devil Docs during the 2003 Iraq invasion, he performed brain surgery five times; the first operation was on a 2-year-old Iraqi boy.  During the Clinton adminstration, Gupta was a White House fellow, writing speeches and crafting policy for Hillary Clinton.

Of course by taking the job of what Dr. Koop called "America’s family doctor"–along with the logistics of moving his wife and family to DC from Atlanta–Gupta will have to give up both his lucrative medical and television careers. He has been in talks with both CBS and CNN to see if he could be released from his contractual obligations, the sources told WaPo.

I guess holding the rank of a three-star admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps doesn’t pay that much–but after his term is up, he could command a much higher salary from networks and there’s always the potential of book deals, etc. And the job does come with that cool uniform.